Mobile computing devices, such as notebook PC's, smart phones, and tablet computing devices, are now common tools used for producing, analyzing, communicating, and consuming data in both business and personal life. Consumers continue to embrace a mobile digital lifestyle as the ease of access to digital information increases with high-speed wireless communications technologies becoming ubiquitous. Popular uses of mobile computing devices include displaying large amounts of high-resolution computer graphics information and video content, often wirelessly streamed to the device. While these devices typically include a display screen, the preferred visual experience of a high-resolution, large format display cannot be easily replicated in such mobile devices because the physical size of such device is limited to promote mobility. Another drawback of the aforementioned device types is that the user interface is hands-dependent, typically requiring a user to enter data or make selections using a keyboard (physical or virtual) or touch-screen display. As a result, consumers are now seeking a hands-free high-quality, portable, color display solution to augment or replace their hands-dependent mobile devices.
Head-Mounted Devices (HMD) often contain head-tracking capability. Head-tracking capability allows the HMD to detect the movements of the head in any direction. This detection can then be used for various inputs, such as panning a screen or screen content, or using the head-tracker to position a ‘mouse-like’ pointer.
Most of the interactions in a computer environment fall into one of three categories: selection, manipulation and navigation.
While head-tracking input is natural for some navigation and direct manipulation tasks, it is inappropriate for tasks that require precise interaction or manipulation.